"Break" is Over Rated

[gregsandiego]

9 hours ago, mvmac said:

Yeah I don't think I've ever seen a golfer over-estimate how much a putt breaks. They always under read it. Doesn't mean that they'll always miss it on the high side, they can pull/push it or hit too hard.

Your buddy also probably likes to hit the short putts firm to "take the break out". 

That's true, right? Break is a function of velocity. Let  me get out that old vector math text book ....

14 hours ago, Dave325 said:

I am still missing a ton of putts I should be making. On yesterday's round, I had a lot of putts that were perfectly read.... But left short by a few inches. Very frustrating! It seems like having all three (read, bead and speed) working together is a fine art. Can truly throwing more time into practice on the green really improve this area? But then that is time I only take away from the full swing practice. A real dilemma here. 

I actually practice putts the least. For a couple of reasons:

Not as much fun.

I rarely totally mishit a putt, but everything else....

[iacas]

10 hours ago, gregsandiego said:

That's true, right? Break is a function of velocity. Let  me get out that old vector math text book ....

More a matter of time than speed… And of course the actual amount of slope, the speed of the green (friction opposes break), etc.

10 hours ago, gregsandiego said:

I actually practice putts the least. For a couple of reasons:

Not as much fun.

The best putters… often practice putting the most, too. They enjoy it, because they're good at it.

(That's not to say they practice putting a LOT relative to other parts of their game… just that they practice putting more than those who suck at putting.)

[Pretzel]

Break is a function of time, because it is caused by gravity accelerating the moving ball down a slope. A faster moving putt breaks less for two reasons:

1) There is less time for gravity to act upon it, so less work is done on the ball by gravity. 

2) The ball has a greater momentum in the forwards direction, meaning you will need to actually apply more work across the same distance of the putt's travel to get the same curve (at a higher speed). Essentially you need to do more work on the ball in a shorter time for the ball to appear to curve as much when it is moving fast. 

[gregsandiego]

9 hours ago, Pretzel said:

Break is a function of time, because it is caused by gravity accelerating the moving ball down a slope. A faster moving putt breaks less for two reasons:

1) There is less time for gravity to act upon it, so less work is done on the ball by gravity. 

2) The ball has a greater momentum in the forwards direction, meaning you will need to actually apply more work across the same distance of the putt's travel to get the same curve (at a higher speed). Essentially you need to do more work on the ball in a shorter time for the ball to appear to curve as much when it is moving fast. 

You lost me on 2. But 1 is seems intuitively correct. I think college first year physics does deal with these kind of problems. 

[boogielicious]

8 hours ago, gregsandiego said:

You lost me on 2. But 1 is seems intuitively correct. I think college first year physics does deal with these kind of problems. 

Just think of it as the length of the putt increases with the break. The ball has to travel further over the ground because it is not on a straight line, but an arc. A ten foot putt may actually travel 12-13 linear feet along the arc. Therefore, you need to apply a bit more force for it to travel that distance. This is why they can seem to fall short of the hole and why Pros say amateurs never miss on the high side.

[gregsandiego]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

Just think of it as the length of the putt increases with the break. The ball has to travel further over the ground because it is not on a straight line, but an arc. A ten foot putt may actually travel 12-13 linear feet along the arc. Therefore, you need to apply a bit more force for it to travel that distance. This is why they can seem to fall short of the hole and why Pros say amateurs never miss on the high side.

I guess "high side" means going beyond the hole? I guess pros like to avoid simple descriptions :)

[iacas]

1 hour ago, gregsandiego said:

I guess "high side" means going beyond the hole? I guess pros like to avoid simple descriptions :)

The high side is the one opposite the direction a putt breaks.

If a putt breaks left, the high side is missing it to the right.

In that case, it's quite descriptive as the ball always breaks downhill, so the right side is the "high" side of the hole, and the left side - the direction the ball was breaking - is the "low" side of the hole.